LP5 – Pinoy Christmas Around the World

It seems the only time I get to post lately is when a deadline prompts me to do so. This round of Lasang Pinoy is hosted by Mike of Lafang, and it is to highlight the different ways that we Pinoys celebrate the holidays all over the world. For us, in the American South, we have embraced the local customs in our celebrations, especially concerning the foods we celebrate with. In the past we have prepared the usual ham, turkey and all the trimmings. This year however, our second year celebrating with just our immediate family instead of our usual company of extended cousins and friends, we decided to also try something new. For some reason it also took us longer than usual to recover from the turkey dosage of Thanksgiving and couldn’t bear the thought of facing another turkey on Christmas day.

So, we went with our guts literally and decided to have an Asian feast instead. Unfortunately, with the recent upgrade of our PCs to XP, we found out the software for our ancient digicam is not compatible with Windows XP and so we couldn’t photograph our feast 🙁

Our menus for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner borrowed heavily on these cookbooks:For Christmas Eve Dinner we had a Japanese menu:

Christmas always seems to be a great time to experiment with new recipes, and this year, experiment we did. I was rather pleased with how the mandarin pancakes came out, and judging by the steamed buns, I think I will be making sio pao soon. The pancakes were thin, and delicious around the peking duck, hoisin sauce, scallions and cilantro. The buns were a pleasant surprise though. I made them as I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull off making the mandarin pancakes without drying them out. The dough for the buns is the same as for making siopao, except in this case, I didn’t fill them but rather made fat “tacos” with them and filled them with the duck and scallions also. Hopefully, we can get our camera problems fixed soon and I will post recipes.Happy Holidays Everyone!

14 comments on “LP5 – Pinoy Christmas Around the World”

happy new year, JMom! i haven’t been around blogger (blogspot sites0 lately so it took me a while to find where the “comment” link was, tee hee . . . i still have a chunk of turkey in my freezer na nakikipag-siksikan with my bucket of frozen sangria . . . hehehe . . . thanks for joining LP5!

Hi Mira! I’ve heard people talk about the pritson, but I haven’t tried it yet either. I bet it’s good. Actually, substituting lechon for the duck is a great ideat! I’ll have to try that next time.

Hi sis! Happy New Year! I’m glad you guys like the calendar 🙂 I’ll try to put all the recipes in a booklet next 😉

Hi CeliaK! Yes, I made them and it is very easy to do, just like making bread. Actually, we haven’t done the re-do yet as I’m waiting to get our cam fixed. As soon as we can take photos again, I’ll re-make the buns for sure. It’s the same dough as siopao. I can’t wait!

Hiya sis! Happy New Year! You can “do-over” the entire menu and use the Chinese New Year as an excuse (he!he!). Glad y’all had a good time. We received the calendars with your recipes. LOOOVE IT! Mom was very impressed!XOXO

Hi CJ, Happy New Year! It was a good change from the usual, and I think the kids enjoyed it 🙂

Hi ces! yup, thank goodness there’s LP to prod me off my lazy butt sometimes 🙂 Times square sounds good to me, I haven’t ever been there yet, and I bet the holidays would be the best time to see it, huh?

Maybe we’ll start experimenting with Greek food next 😉 You will be our main consultant for that one. 😀

Hi Thess! Happy New Year! The duck was wonderful, thanks to Stel’s tips and recipe. I think we will be doing the duck again soon.As for the cam, I think it’s time to get another one, unfortunately 🙁

Hi Stel! Unfortunately, we will probably have to do the whole dinner over again so we can photograph it properly 🙁 Not that we’d mind though 🙂 That duck was really delicious, thanks again! If not for you, I would never have tried cooking duck, and it was easy!! Oh, and the mandarin pancakes were delish! The Clone just had cucumber, scallion, cilantro and hoisin sauce on hers though. She doesn’t know what she missed, that duck was out of this world! 😀

it’s been awhile! good thing thre’s LP huh? we’re on the same boat..last year was with cousins..now it’s just us! that’s exactly how i felt..why not try something new..so we’re off to times square! thanks for dropping by..and happy happy new year to you and the family!